The Bleacher Bums: May 8, 2008 Archive

Carlos Gomez achieved one of the rarest of rare baseball feats last night when he hit for the cycle in the Twins 13-1 crushing of the White Sox, becoming the first Twin to do since Kirby Puckett in 1986. The last MLB player to hit for the cycle was Baltimore's Aubrey Huff, who did it on June 29th of the 2007 season.

Of course, nearly every player to hit for the cycle has to get a little lucky, as Gomez did on his 9th inning single, but that was about as legitimate a cycle as you're going to see. Here's a list of all the MLB players to hit for the cycle.

So in the span of a few weeks we've seen the valley and the peak of the Carlos Gomez era. And some noted skeptics are starting to turn into believers. We may be in a for a wild ride with Go-Go, but it sure will be fun to watch.

"Moneyball" is to baseball what frugal is to cheap; it's a creative way of saying, "we're not going to pay for our stars or reward our veterans who have earned their keep." Sabermetrics and scientific stats are used to evaluate players and give a better indication of their worth, but teams like the Minnesota Twins use this strategy to kiss their superstars goodbye at the trade deadline or the first day of free agency. The Twins constantly sell proven veterans for prospects and draft picks, but when those youngsters finally develop, they get shipped away to start the cycle again. The Twins incessantly look to the future and winning now is not a priority. Translation: the Twins care more about the dollars than about winning."

The Timberwolves remarkably, are not on this list, neither are the Milwaukee Brewers or even our luckless Vikings. Then there's the NHL, where according to a commenter "they could have come up with a list of 15 or more trash teams". I guess if the point of the article was to get a reaction it worked. If it was supposed to be even semi-serious analysis, it failed miserably.